Chief Seattle Quotes - Page 2

Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

There is no such place as away.

All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the children of the Earth.

The earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors - the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Humans merely share the Earth. We can only protect the land, not own it.

What is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pool at night?

All things are connected, like the blood that runs in your family "The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father." 1854 The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. You must give to the rivers the kindness you would give to any brother.

When the green hills are covered with talking wires and the wolves no longer sing, what good will the money you paid for our land be then

Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man ... cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

All things are bound together. All things connect.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds.

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? ... The end of living and the beginning of survival.

The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine. The air is precious to the red man, for all things are the same breath - the animals, the trees, the man.

Your God loves your people and hates mine; he folds his strong arms lovingly around the white man and leads him as a father leads his infant son, but he has forsaken his red children; he makes your people wax strong every day, and soon they will fill the land; while my people are ebbing away like a fast-receding tide, that will never flow again. The white man's God cannot love his red children or he would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help.

We are a part of the earth and it is part of us.

The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

. . . the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony and man - all belong to the same family. . . . The White Man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

Like a man who has been dying for many days, a man in your city is numb to the stench.

To us, the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground.

We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?

Tribe follows tribe, nations follow nations like the tides of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.

All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.

We are part of the earth and it is part of us ... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.